All Chapters of Ephemeral - A Modern Love Story: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

A woman sits alone under the flickering lights of a bus station on the border between Roseville and Citrus Heights, hoping to catch the last bus headed towards the light rail station. This late at night, so few people are around waiting for buses or trains, especially in that city. The only people still left around are much like the man she sees waiting at the bus stop across from her, delved way too deep into a smoking cigarette, where one would have to wonder if the man is consuming the cigarette or if the cigarette is consuming him. She couldn’t judge however, she knew better than that. A notification rings from inside her purse, something inside of her tells her that it’s the inevitable text she would always be bound to receive, a text as unavoidable as the cigarette smoke lingering across the bust terminal from the man’s cigarette. you’re nothing without me Her lips seem to grasp the words from mid-air and her to

Seconds dissolved into minutes, then into hours, listening to each song allowing myself to dissolve back into the slivers of the past like I, myself, am the seconds themselves. In the daze, I find myself leaving my bed to wander around the room to dance to the faster songs, until I settle onto my desk chair. Each lyric fading into the next, and into the next, uninterrupted. That is, until someone bursts through my bedroom door, sneaks up behind my chair, and yanks the earphones out of my ears. I turn around getting ready to punch a possibly home invader with the gall to interrupt my listening session, but instead resist the urge to wipe the shit-eating grin from Colton’s face by shoving him into my bookshelf. “What’s your deal?” I grumble and I begin to coil my earphones into a neat loop. “I was just telling you that I’m back, sheesh—” Colton pauses, and bends down to meet my eyes at the same level, sighing as he finishes. “You’re go

The very beginnings of Autumn in the California Valley is highlighted with a distinct heat in the day and an even more distinct chill in evenings, it’s the type of chill that makes a commute on a motorcycle close to unbearable without a coat. Not that I go without a coat on my motorcycle anyway, even in the dead of the summer. In the month and a half since the sorority party, Parker and I have shared an impressive amount of text messages, occasional video chats, and a single meet up for dinner at a small scale restaurant in Midtown which charged heavily for a salad. Not quite enough to classify what we have going on as a formal relationship, but more like just simply getting to know each other a little more without the melodrama of commitment. So to say, I’m not quite ready enough to commit to writing a love note on a sticky note and sticking it on my fridge, but I have already begun on thinking about what to put on it. Emilia’s description of him was as apt as anything else that sh

I came out in High School. My parents didn’t really understand it, however my Uncle Raul did. It was a quiet summer evening before my Sophomore year when he came over. After he explained my identity to my parents in terms that they could understand, he joined me on the front porch swing. He was from a different time, and from an entirely different part of the country where they still believe that a Conversion Camp had any chance in derailing someone from fully embracing themselves. Needless to say, after he had to go through the cruelty of those camps at 14 years of age, his Aunt — my grandmother — adopted him. He grew up with my mother like he was her actual brother. So, having him to explain it to my parents was a rare privilege that so few people get to experience. It was on that front porch swing that he explained to me what he believed was most important for people like us; love. The people before us went through so much for it, fought tooth and nail for it, and even experience

Autumn has taken a hold of our part of the city as well, the leaves on the tree atop the roof top deck have begun falling down cluttering the stony floors. A few leaves blow past in the wake of a gust of wind and lands right on my shoe. The events of the previous two weeks have been caught on my mind. While Parker had been busy dealing with the ramifications of his failed experiment, I had been thrown into an emotional and logistical quagmire of sorts. Between midterms, Colton being unaware that I know his little secret, and Danilo somehow being brought into our apartment as a “temporary arrangement”, I have been completely lost in a whirlwind. Parker had surprised me earlier today by telling me that the entire debacle with their experiment had been concluded and was free to come to the city to meet with me. Though, a single phrase kept nagging at my brain. Don’t tell him about them.“Turns out, the University Board o